Stephanie Ostermann’s favourite social media platform is Snapchat. While most people see it as a frivolous, time wasting platform, her reason for loving it is why we’re so excited to have her on the WS Team. “I love Snapchat because I’m fascinated by what people choose to share when they have a sense that what is shared is fleeting and impermanent. They spend less time composing the perfect shot, editing it to death, writing and rewriting the perfect caption. It’s a more accurate and relatable story of people – and of brands.”
Since joining WS as Content & Social Strategist at the beginning of September, Stephanie has been applying that same kind of fascination about the way people use and interact with brands and platforms to strategies for both our clients and for our own content and social media accounts. With almost eight years of experience in brand strategy, social media and content writing in the wedding and portrait photography industry, ebooks and countless article author credits, and a true love for words, conversation and connection, she has the rare ability to consider varied audiences when creating and curating content and building strategies. “It can be easy to fall into the trap of believing that every company needs to be on every single platform, or that they have to stick with safe and familiar platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook, but that’s often a plan that fails before it starts,” she says. “It’s clichéd, but quality wins over quantity when it comes to content marketing, every time. You can spend a lot of time creating small pieces of content for platforms where your audience isn’t even spending any time.”
With that in mind, you can usually find Stephanie at her desk, crafting social calendar plans or mapping out content strategies by hand with a pencil and paper. That might seem contrary for someone as fluent in digital as she is, but watching the plans come together in this way gives everyone on the team the ability to visualize the pixels and bits of social media in a way that makes collaboration effortless. And she’s constantly asking questions. Every piece of content must have a purpose that contributes to the overall goals and objectives of the strategy. Nothing is a throwaway.
As a single parent of two tweens, coming to agency life was no small decision. “After being self-employed for nearly a decade, this has been a huge shift in thinking – and scheduling! – for me and my family.” When she’s not hard at work here in our office, she’s making the most of her free time introducing her kids to 90s comedy classics like Full House and Fresh Prince on Netflix, spending long evenings over dinner and cocktails with friends or – you guessed it – on social media. But when she’s not at work, it’s a much fluffier activity. “I watch a lot of Justin Bieber gifs.”
We love having Stephanie on the team at WS! If you’d like to connect with her and pick her brain about content strategy, you can find her on LinkedIn (and Twitter, and Facebook, and Instagram, and Snapchat, and tumblr….)
